• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.10
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• pp.1310-1317
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• 2014

In our daily life, the need of energy increases day by day. However, the amount of natural resources on the earth is limited and thus gaining renewable energy as an energy resource is one of the important and urgent problems. Solar energy is one of the most popular available energy sources that can be converted into electricity by using solar panels. In order for solar panels to produce maximal output power, the incident angle of the sunlight needs to be persistently perpendicular to the solar panel. By the way, most of the solar panels are installed at fixed position and direction. Therefore, as the sun's position changes, it is impossible to produce maximal output power inevitably. To improve this problem, in this paper, a sun tracking system using two degree-of-freedom (DOF) active sensor array is proposed so that the solar panel may always direct sunlight perpendicularly. And also a series of software, such as a search mode and a holding mode, which can control the developed sun tracking system is developed. Several experiments using the implemented sun tracking system are executed and the effectiveness of the system is verified from the experimental results.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.502-508
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• 2012

Heliostat, as a concentrator to reflect the incident solar energy to the receiver, is the most important system in the tower-type solar thermal power plant since it determines the efficiency and ultimately the overall performance of solar thermal power plant. Thus, a good sun tracking ability as well as a good optical property of it are required. Heliostat sun tracking system uses usually an open loop control system. Thus the sun tracking error caused by heliostat's geometrical error, optical error and computational error cannot be compensated. Recently use of sun tracking error model to compensate the sun tracking error has been proposed, where the error model is obtained from the measured ones. This work is a development of heliostat sun tracking error measurement and compensation method using BCS (Beam Characterization System). We first developed an image processing system to measure the sun tracking error optically. Then the measured error is modeled in linear polynomial form and neural network form trained by the extended Kalman filter respectively. Finally error models are used to compensate the sun tracking error. We also developed the necessary image processing algorithms so that the heliostat optical properties such as maximum heat flux intensity, heat flux distribution and total reflected heat energy could be analyzed. Experimentally obtained data shows that the heliostat sun tracking accuracy could be dramatically improved using either linear polynomial type error model or neural network type error model. Neural network type error model is somewhat better in improving the sun tracking performance. Nevertheless, since the difference between two error models in compensation of sun tracking error is small, a linear error model is preferred in actual implementation due to its simplicity.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.617-621
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• 2001

This paper presents a maximum power point tracking algorithm for Photovoltaic array using only instantaneous output current information. The conventional Hill climbing method of peak power tracking has a disadvantage of oscillations about the maximum power point. To overcome this problem, we have developed a algorithm, that will estimate the duty ratio corresponding to maximum power operation of solar cell. The estimation of the optimal duty ratio involves, finding the duty ratio at which integral value of output current is maximum. For the estimation, we have used the well know Lagrange's interpolation method. This method can track maximum power point quickly even for changing solar insolations and avoids oscillations after reaching the maximum power point.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.38-45
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• 2021

The photovoltaic module has the characteristic of changing its output characteristics depending on the amount of radiation and temperature, where the arrays that connect them in series and parallel also have the same characteristics. These characteristics require the MPPT technique to find the maximum power point. Existing P&O and IncCond cannot find the global maximum power point (GMPP) for partial shading. Moreover, in the case of Improved-GMPPT and Enhanced Search-Skip-Judge-GMPPT, GMPP due to partial shading can be found, but the variation in the open voltage during temperature fluctuations will affect the operation of the Skip and will not be able to perform accurate MPPT operation. In this study, we analyzed the correlation between voltage, current, and power under solar module and array conditions. We also proposed a technique to find the maximum power point even for temperature fluctuations using not only the amount of radiation but also the temperature coefficient. The proposed control technique was verified through simulations and experiments by constructing a 2.5 kW single-phase solar power generation system.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07b
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• pp.1187-1188
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• 2006

This paper a new method which applies a genetic algorithm for determining which sectionalizing switch to operate in order to solve the distribution system loss minimization re-configuration problem. In addition, the proposed method introduces a ultra efficient MPP tracking in a solar power generation system.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.260-265
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• 2003

The energy of PV system is different as the elevation and aximuth of the sun. This paper deals with the economical position tracking system development for the stand alone PV system. We have made more economical solar position tracking system which is used a tracking program than other similar systems. It is applied to the solar lighting lamp. We have made a comparative study of the energy amount between the fixed type and the tracking type during some period. The improved efficiency of the system is about 86 %.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.684-687
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• 2005

KIER has been running a demonstration project for 10kWe solar thermal power generation. the project is to build and operate the first solar thermal power generation system in Korea. For concentrating solar thermal energy $40m^2$ dish type concentrator was adapted and a stirling engine is going to be integrated to the system for power production. At the moment building the dish concentrator including mirror and sun tracking system was completed and it's performance are being closely evaluated. This paper will introduce some detailed designs and construction procedures which we have experienced so far.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.64-69
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• 2009

This paper aims at enhancing the electric production efficiency of photovoltaic(PV) system. The electrical power of PV system is proportional to light intensity on a PV module surface. In this paper, we apply two types of systems to enhance power generation efficiency. First, of all, concentring sunlight using specular surface and one-axis tracking system which traces the sun with vertical direction are applied in this project. From this, we analyze the fixed type method and power generation efficiency.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.376-386
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• 2013

This paper proposes an improved Maximum Power Point Tracking method and design methods of unmanned solar vehicle system by parts of hardware, unmanned driving control and power conversion. The hardware design is offered on the weight reduction and structural reliability by using structural analysis software. The technique of curve fitting is applied to unmanned control system due to minimizing the vehicle's behavior. Furthermore, lateral controller applying actuator dynamics is robust enough to prevent performance degradation by measurement noise regarding position and heading angle. The power conversion system contains battery charger system and tapped-inductor boost converter. In the battery charger system, variable step-size MPPT is conducted for quick response of maximum power point tracking. The validity of the proposed algorithm are verified by simulations and experiments.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.571-575
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• 2002

Generation of electrical energy faces many problems today. Solar power converters were used to convert the electrical energy from the solar arrays to a stable and reliable power source. The object of this paper is to analyze and design DC-DC converters in a solar energy system to investigate the performance of the converters. A DC-DC converter can be commonly used to control the power flow from solar cell to load and to achieve maximum power point tracking(MPPT), DC-AC converter can also be used to modulate the DC power to AC power being applied on common utility load. A DC-DC converter is used to boost the solar cell voltage to constant 360(V) DC link and to ensure operation at the maximum power point tracking, If a wide input voltage range has to be covered a boost converter is required. In this paper, author described that simulation and experimental results of PV system contain solar modules, a DC-DC converter(boost type chopper), a DC-AC converter (3-phase inverter) and resistive loads.